Throughout the week I was trying to drum up interest in a trip somewhere, I as usual batted suggestions
about, however no one else going for these trips. Eventually I suggested something that seemed to
generate a bit of interest at least in Rob. Of course this “Bye Gorge Pot”. It was Pete who suggested
coming out Peterson. That sounded like a good trip so the challenge was on!
Anyway we met up on a most dank Uninspiring morning in Inglesport. After a quick brekkie for me we
headed out in Robs “Mobile Changing room” onto Leck Fell to trot about finding the entrance. After
searching the wrong bit of the field, we eventually did find the correct shake hole where we were met
by an Uninspiring plastic tube with a stepladder at the bottom. We made the agreement for me to carry
the tackle through Bye George and Rob to have it tied to his foot to come out of Peterson.
11:00 am
Once in about 5 minutes of crawling leads to a rigged little pitch known as the “Tuck Shop” (all pitches
on this trip have fixed rope at the moment). The pitch was only a little. Down that safely, we took our
kits off for the long slog ahead.
I set off in front and started crawling and squeezing past various obstacles in the passage. We thought
that soon we would reach the infamous Back Breaker Squeeze. But just as the passage seemed to close
down it would widen out again around the next corner. This happened so often so that at almost every
bend in the passage Rob was saying this looks like the back breaker squeeze. We seemed to cover so
much distance and still had not reached it. Eventually we actually reach it.
Rob had a look at it, then I had a look at it and thought hmm maybe there is a reason this is called back
breaker squeeze so I did it facing the wrong wall i.e. lying on my left hand side round a left hand
corner. It did also seem to me that it would be a lot harder facing the other way. My back was more
then up to the task and I got through this little obstacle with no issues. Rob also had no issues
doing it the correct way either.
12:00 Lunch time
More passage and Squeezes and a duck followed until we hit the long drawn out Curtain Squeeze
were I made Rob stay in the cold water so I could take pictures of him (That’s normally my job).
More pictures were taken in the delicate straw chamber just beyond this point.
After some easy going and more roomy passages reached Grand Cascade pitch. It looked and sounded
very wet however upon descending we saw that the rope was well diverted away from the water
meaning a dry decent. Rob went down first and then it was my turn. I reached the second deviation,
which is a good 4 feet away from where the rope wants to lead you. I did not know that the bottom of
the rope actually was tied off, water was making communication impossible. If I knew this was it
would have saved me the effort of performing some nice aerobatics to swing my self across to get to
the deviation, not to mention the energy to hold my self there.
Anyway with that bottomed the Canal was next, which was enjoyed by both of us as we both managed
to stay dry by traversing it. We didn’t stay dry for long, going down the cascades as there was good
flow of water going down them, good fun though.
Reaching the Hall of the Mountain king we were at a point where we could chicken out and go out
Mistral. We didn’t, motivated by the fact that Pete probably didn’t expect us to do it so I (I don’t know
about Rob) wanted to prove him wrong. So up the pitch into Peterson we went, after of course Rob had
convinced me the anchors were sound. We passed the next two pitches without incident, except us both getting our kit tangled on the traverse
over the 4th pitch in Peterson.
After the third pitch we hit the next obstacle, which is the climb up into Roly-Poly. The climb is indeed
far bigger then 2 and a half meters as suggested in NFTFH. It was at least twice my height, looking at
the climb now I am puzzled at how the hell I got the nerve to sky dive that on a trip earlier in the year.
Roly-Poly crawl and the climb up seemed to take allot out of me, allot more then my last visit going the
opposite direction. Probably due to the fact on that trip I had not just done one grade 5 cave to get
there. The sheer effort that is involved in shoving/un-jamming a tackle sack along tied to Robs foot
while holding yourself up on your arms to stop your self becoming a permanent fixture in the Rift was
tiring to say the least. We got to the end of this nasty rifty bit of Roly-Poly after about 20 minutes,
which is a good time. We had well deserved breather at this point. We pressed on through what I think
is easier section, but everyone else reckons is the hardest bit of passage that leads to the bottom of the
second pitch.
3:00pm
Rob free climbed the second pitch. I free climbed most of it too but I found my strength had been sapped by today’s adventure. I got up on my second attempt using a combination of my hand jammer and climbing. I did have to re-attach the rope near the top, good job I had already firmly wedged my self in. With that over all that was left was to do quick crawl over some dead sheep bones crunch and to go up the first pitch where Rob was ready with the camera.
Very good trip and I certainly feel it. Its always a good trip if you can barely walk/drive after it, though
Rob seemed to be barely aching at all except from the walk to the Van.
Exit time 3:20pm
